The Adventure of Faith

The Two-Cookie God

Growing up in a household of five boys and a one income family, we were not privy to many of the frills I enjoy now.We used a picnic table and benches as our kitchen table, drank powdered milk (yes it had a blue tint), and daily had home made bread as it was cheaper than the store bought kind. How little we knew how fortunate we were! On occasion, my mom would make chocolate chip cookies. They were my favorite. However, we were instilled with the concept, “you can only have two cookies.” Without my realizing it, that became a life mantra.

I remember the shock when I left home and went away to college and found some of my roommates would eat three or four cookies at a time. I had no category in my head to understand that. Even though I wanted to eat three or four myself, I couldn’t find it in me to violate such a deep code of honor. Over time, I would eventually find myself able to eat more than two cookies but the life mantra stilled lived on.

Eventually I realized that I had a stingy bent to my nature. Somewhere in my soul was the thought that there wasn’t enough to go around. Abundance and overflowing were not categories I lived in. The greatest shock came, however, when I realized I saw God as a “two-cookie God.” He would give us good things…but only in small doses. We couldn’t ask for three cookies from God. I became aware of a bent in my soul towards a “spirit of poverty.” That is the mindset that says, there is not enough to go around, that the resources are limited, that we will always live right on the edge, and that we can’t ask God for more. After all, we already have had our two cookies.

During a prayer meeting the other day, God spoke to a couple of us at the same time to pray against a “poverty mindset.” As I began to pray I recognized that my soul resonated still with this wrong bent. We prayed for God’s abundance, His blessings, to open our eyes to His generous and gracious gifts…that we would not put God in a box. I needed to slay my “two-cookie God” and embrace the God of the Bible.

The next day I was reading in Joshua 10 about how the Israelites were fighting a major battle in taking the Promised Land. In the middle of the battle Joshua did an amazing thing, HE ASKED GOD TO HAVE THE SUN STAND STILL SO THEY COULD FINISH THE BATTLE. I noted that Joshua didn’t have a two-cookie God! You see, you can’t respond to God’s call in your life and extend God’s kingdom if you have a two-cookie God. You need a God who will stop the sun to help you complete the work He has given you. I now pray almost daily, in our house church planting work for the sun to stand still…no not literally. But I realize now that whatever need we have is not too large to ask. And I have begun to ask for it in abundance. It is refreshing. It is liberating. It is freeing. As a matter of fact, I think I will end this blog right now and go eat THREE OR FOUR COOKIES!

Dave I remember when I was at your house and you mentioned this two cookie concept. Laura said it would make a great title to an article someday, and it does! Great devotional. 🙂 And, I’ll have snickerdoodles, please. . .

The path you describe is something I can really relate to, initially the title of the blog drew me in – cooookiiies 🙂 but as I’ve been graced with eyes to see and ears to hear, I know – know God is so much greater than my mind can ever wrap around and I love resting in awe of Him. I’ve missed learning from you – this is great!

About

My name is David Gschwend and I have been journeying with Jesus since 1971. He had been pursuing me a lot longer than that, but it was my senior year in high school that I finally decided to start following him. After graduating from college I taught high school biology and chemistry for four years. After that, I worked in the electrical industry in testing and troubleshooting high, medium and low voltage power equipment. Finally in 1989 my journey took me into the pastoral ministry. After 16 years serving in traditional churches Jesus led me in June 2006 to begin a movement of networks of reproducing house churches from San Jose to Monterey, CA (www.gatheringbythebay.org). This has been the craziest part of the journey so far!